Monday, March 17, 2008

You Tube and blogs have made it much harder for liberal/leftist news organizations to ignore stories that don’t help their candidates. So they find themselves relying more often now on those old journalism standbys: underreporting and “softening” what they’re forced to report.

We see those standbys at work in Newsweek’s Trying Times for Trinity, its story concerning Obama and his close friend and pastor of almost 20 years, Trinity’s UCC’s Rev. Jeremiah Wright [extract]:

Last Thursday, snippets of a few of Wright's more incendiary sermons circulated online, including one in which the pastor calls out Hillary Clinton for being part of the white establishment—"Hillary ain't never been called a n–––––"—and another in which the pastor says, "God damn America … for killing innocent people." He also calls the 9/11 attacks "America's chickens coming home to roost."

The next day Obama released a statement about Wright on the Huffington Post. "I vehemently disagree and strongly condemn the statements that have been the subject of this controversy," he wrote. He said further that he hadn't been in the room when the offending comments were made and that he and his family looked forward to continuing their relationship to the church through its new pastor.

Later, a spokesman announced that Wright would no longer serve the campaign in any advisory capacity.

The quotes you’ve just read are all Newsweek provides from Wright’s “more incendiary sermons.” Talk about “snippets!”

Nowhere in the article does Newsweek say Wright has over the years laced his sermons with extended anti-American and racists remarks.

Newsweek doesn’t mention the question millions of Americans are asking themselves: How could Obama not know of the kind of statements Wright made not just “ a few” times, but often, and not in just in “a room” but from the pulpit?

But Newsweek does serve up a lot about what a really great guy Rev. Wright is. As Newsweek describes him, Wright sounds like the sort of clergyman the Dems should get to deliver one of the invocations at their national convention this August.

Now, what about Wright’s friendship with Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan, you may be asking?

Well, that all has to do with Rev. Wright’s “unconditional love.” At least it does the way Newsweek spins it.

Read the whole story here. It’s a masterpiece of underreporting and “softening.”

People who rely for news on Newsweek and lib/Dem media outfits won’t know much about Wright’s anti-Americanism and racism.

So they won’t know enough to ask themselves what it means that Obama chose such a person as his spiritual counselor and close friend.